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YES! in the World

Alaska’s just transition

Fall 2017

In our fall issue, we went in depth to show communities making a just transition away from using fossil fuels. We sent editor Stephen Miller to the Arctic to explore how oil-rich Alaska is choosing to ramp up efforts toward renewable energy. Organizer Jessica Girard from the Northern Alaska Environmental Center said the magazine issue has helped reach and inspire more Alaskans about the work already underway in their state. Overall, it “has helped in normalizing the term and how a just transition can look in our state, how it is Native-led, and how it is already happening,” she told us.

Food justice in Ecuador

In Ecuador, YES! reader Alan Adams was inspired by the article &ldquo:How to Feed Ourselves in a Time of Climate Change,” in which author and food justice activist Raj Patel along with executive editor Tracy Matsue Loeffelholz set out 13 ideas for a just and sustainable food system. Adams decided to use these standards to see how the local Kañari people where he lives were doing in their own food system. &ldquo:When I read the first section of the article about indigenous land ownership, I was struck by how true that factor is in making economic and social progress,” he told us, referring to a section on the importance of indigenous sovereignty. “Without land ownership, [the Kañari] could not own their response to climate change.” Adams then identified the rest of the ideas — like carbon sequestration and open source seeds — in Kañari practices. &ldquo:This exercise then set me on the path of analyzing the entire effort by the Kañari indigenous community to better understand it and describe it to potential providers of financial and technical support,” he said.

Sanctuary in Seattle

Summer 2017

In August, more than 130 Seattle area residents attended the YES! conversation event &ldquo:Sanctuary Stories,” in which immigrant community members discussed the city’s fight to protect immigrants from new xenophobic policies of the Trump admininstration. Senior Editor Shannan Stoll moderated a conversation with a panel of local experts on sanctuary policy, DACA, detention centers, immigration law, and the role of churches. We asked them what it really means to be a sanctuary city, how Seattle’s most vulnerable can be protected, and how to grow a protector movement grounded in democracy. Participants broke off into smaller discussions to find out how they could plug in to local activism. More than 50 people walked away with specific pledges for action — and next steps toward making them a reality.

From the Executive Director

Dear readers,

Christine Hanna

Christine Hanna

Justice is on my mind, and I’m not alone.

Have you read Lori Lakin Hutcherson’s article “My White Friend Asked Me on Facebook to Explain White Privilege. I Decided to Be Honest” at yesmagazine.org? By the time you read this, more than 1.3 million readers will have. That’s more than any other piece in YES!’s 20-year history. Am I thrilled at all the new YES! readers? Absolutely. I’m also terribly sad about the circumstances — the rise in violence and the depth of White supremacy — that led us to publish such an honest and moving account of racism and privilege. I’m so very grateful to Lori for writing it.

At YES! we believe that the forward-looking work of building just, sustainable, compassionate communities can only happen when we look honestly at ourselves and our history. Over the past few years, with support from our donors, we’ve been intentionally focused on diversifying our writers and editors and stepping up our coverage of root causes and solutions related to racial equity, Native rights, and climate justice. That investment is paying off: YES! journalists this year won five awards from the National Association of Black Journalists and the Native American Journalists Association for our coverage of racial justice, Standing Rock, and Native leadership. Columbia University’s Tobenkin award for outstanding reporting on racial intolerance went to our Standing Rock reporter Jenni Monet.

The awards are nice, but what’s really important is what’s behind them: Millions of people becoming more aware of the history and reality lived by people of color in our country and what steps we can take together for a better shared future.

I keep thinking about Lori’s article and how many people it has affected. In my family and among my friends, it cracked open conversations we’ve never had about our White privilege. Research shows that YES! articles shift readers’ thinking and behavior. So I can’t help but imagine: What if this article — and the many others like it — had been published and so widely shared 10 or 20 years ago? Might we be much closer to the world we want to live in? And what if YES! could publish such a piece every day? I want to!

Clearly, there is so much more to share, to understand, and to do. We are honored to be on this journey with you, our readers, and we promise to continue to find and support writers whose perspectives awaken us and communities whose solutions inspire us.

With gratitude,

Christine Hanna, Executive Director

Contributors

The Solidarity Economies Issue

Penn Loh

Loh is senior lecturer and director of the Master of Public Policy Program and Community Practice at Tufts University’s Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning. He partners with various community based organizations in the Solidarity Economy Initiative, Right to the City Alliance and Center for Economic Democracy. He has published broadly on environmental justice, sustainable community development, and solidarity economies.

Darrick Hamilton

Diversity, inclusion, and social justice work is core to Hamilton’s personal and professional values. He is a stratification economist with joint appointments in The New School’s Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy and the Department of Economics at The New School for Social Research, using social science and policy analysis to study causes and consequences of racial and ethnic disparities and the associated remedies to address these inequalities.

Ai-jen Poo

Ai-jen Poo, the executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, co-director of Caring Across Generations, and a 2014 MacArthur Fellow, is an award-winning activist and author who has spent her career organizing immigrant women workers to advocate for sustainable, quality caregiving jobs and working to ensure affordable care for older adults. Her book, The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America, outlines a path to becoming a more caring nation.

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